What are the philosophical views of contemporary professional philosophers? We surveyed many professional philosophers in order to help determine their views on thirty central philosophical issues. This article documents the results.

It also reveals correlations among philosophical views and between these views and factors such as age, gender, and nationality. A factor analysis suggests that an individual’s views on these issues factor into a few underlying components that predict much of the variation in those views.

The results of a metasurvey also suggest that many of the results of the survey are surprising: philosophers as a whole have quite inaccurate beliefs about the distribution of philosophical views in the profession.

The target faculty were those in the 89 elite philosophy departments in the English-speaking world, with a few “outsiders”.

The response rate was around 50%, whch I’d have thought was amazingly good, with the rate being slightly better for men than women.

Faculty appears to be around 80% male.

The introduction makes the useful point that knowing what the consensus is on any philosophical position is relevant to how arguments are conducted in philosophical papers. So, more space should be given to supporting controversial or minor positions, while majority views can often be taken as read. But ignorance of, or confusion about, what the majority views actually are can distort the reasoning-focus in a paper. Consequently, all this sociological stuff, while not itself philosophy, can be useful to philosophy (as well as providing material for the history of the future).

However, the paper notes that there’s no real consensus on any substantive philosophical issue, and because there’s less convergence over time in philosophy than in science, the evidence of what experts believe is less of an indicator of where the truth lies than in science.

It is pointed out that there is a significant mismatch between what philosophers think is the popularity of the various philosophical positions, and what is actually the case. Also, that philosophers tend to underestimate the popularity of their own views2.

The Questions:

There are 30 questions, listed with summary responses below. All are interesting.

However, of these, I’ve chosen 8 of particular interest. More detail on the response-breakdown for these questions appears at the end of this note.

The reason for my choices, and some comments appears immediately below.

I’ve extracted the high-level responses of my chosen 22 philosophers for these 8 questions appears in the table below.

Free Will:

It was interesting to see that around 60% of philosophers at least incline to the view that free will and determinism are compatible; which is just as well, given that (QM-aside) the world is deterministic, and – for practical purposes – we have free will.

This question is important, given a general commitment to naturalism, physicalism and (for practical purposes) atheism.

See Parfit’s3 comment – while ostensibly denying that we have free will, he thinks we have enough for “ought → can” to go through. Maybe this is just the Hobbesian freedom of spiders?

My view: Compatibilism.

God:

I don’t know whether to be comforted or not by the thought that around ¾ of analytic philosphers at least incline towards atheism.

A number of distinguished philosphers are theists, but few seem to have responded to this survey.

Even so, around 10% claim to be decided theists – which is quite a lot.

Amongst my selected philosophers, only one – Lynne Rudder Baker is a firm theist, and only one other – E.J. Lowe is leaning in that direction. Thus roughly confirms the 10% mark.

I think that the sine qua non of the philosophical approach – namely, of following an argument where it leads – is corrosive of faith, and that using philosophy to think up clever arguments in support of what you believe anyway (as William Lane Craig), or as the medieval "handmaiden of theology", is a travesty of analytic philosophy.

My view: Agnosticism (probably).

Metaphilosophy:

It seems that around ½ of analytic philosophers are naturalists, about ¼ aren’t, and the remaining quarter are undecided.

I don’t know what the non-naturalists who aren’t theists actually believe.

Methodological naturalism is core to the natural sciences, so you’d expect those philosophers who think of philosophy as the handmaiden of the sciences to adopt this position.

My view: Naturalism.

Mind:

While more than half of analytical philosophers at least incline towards physicalism in the philosophy of mind, only about &frac13; are fully decided, with about ¼ at least inclined towards non-physicalism.

This has spin-offs for personal identity, and may explain why so few philosophers accept the biological view4.

My view: Physicalism.

Personal Identity:

> &frac13; don’t know, and another &frac13; accept the Psychological View. Less than 17% are even inclined towards the Biological5 View, and about twice that number are enticed by the “Further Fact” view.

Surprisingly, philosophers seem evenly divided between survival, death and indecision.

Only supporters of the Psychological View ought to be enticed in the direction of survival.

Parfit’s7 response is categarised as “reject both”, but he explicitly says he wouldn’t survive. However – as we might expect – he claims that it’s as good as survival.

My view: Death.

Trolley Problem:

This is a little tangential to my interests, but a fascinating question.

I was pleased to see such a preponderance of support for the essentially consequentialist response of “switching”, with nearly 70% inclined in this direction, and < 3% clearly refusing to switch.

But, one philosopher (Sally Haslanger) suggested that the problem is mis-stated. The paradox is allegedly to expain why almost no-one refuses to switch, but almost everyone refuses to throw the fat man off the bridge to stop the train and achieve the same result.

As it happens, an email popped up on Philos_List while I was writing this Note: see Link for a lead in to the topic9.

My view: Switch.

Zombies:

¼ of the respondents sit on the fence, and another ¼ think zombies are possible. The rest think zombies are metaphysically impossible, but &frac23; of these think that zombies are at least conceivable.

Personally, I don’t see how something that’s metaphysically impossible can be conceivable. At first thought, it might seem conceivable, but when you think it through and find it to be metaphysically impossible presumably the conceivability turns out to be ilusory?

A much closer look revealed a number of interesting philosophers who appear in the table above, and several others (more than 15, plus a former fellow grad-student at Birkbeck) I’d heard of, but who are less relevant to my interests.

The likelihood of switching declines if the person described is individualised, but

The decline is less marked if the person is described as poor, plain or disabled.

As you can imagine, there’s some hand-wringing about this, in particular, the reluctance of men to sacrifice pretty girls.

As this is a consequentialist problem, there ought to be at least some evaluation by the agent of the individuals involved in the trade-off, but not for irrelevant reasons (prettiness). Imagine the “five” being SS men, or the “one” being someone for whom you have a duty of care.

Also, it’s unclear how optional the intervention is. See Parfit’s point – which is that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a bystander or the driver of the trolley. Others might disagree.

Also, there’s the issue of precisely how the question is phrased – whether it’s what you (think you) would do, or what you (think you) ought to do. Presumably the former, in which case it would be a snap decision that you might, on reflection, regret.

Parfit’s Comment: I believe that there is no conceivable form of freedom that could justify the view that we can deserve to suffer, but that we have the freedom implied in the doctrine 'ought' implies 'can'.

I’m not sure what he means, nor how his claim – whatever it is – is justified.

These are very large questions, not to be dealt with in a footnote – or a one-liner.

Maybe Parfit thinks that we have freedon of action, but not freedom of the will.

Parfit’s Comment: The most plausible account of personal identity would involve the continued existence of enough of the brain, in a way that combines versions of the psychological and biological views.

Parfit’s Comment: I wouldn't survive teletransportation, but this prospect would be as good as, or as bad as, ordinary survival.

Classic Parfit. Stems from Parfit’s belief that what matters is all third-person stuff: our projects and qualities. But if your FPP fails to “go through” – you (rather than the world, which is perfectly happy with a “look alike”) have lost almost everything that matters, despite being happy that someone else will carry on your projects and look after your dependants.

Parfit’s Comment: But it makes a crucial difference whether we are the driver or a bystander. I believe that even the bystander ought to switch the trolley.

This is an interesting and important point. If you are the driver, you are already involved, and cannnot escape making a decision – to do nothing is as much a decision as to switch. But if you are a bystander, there’s the option of walking on by.

Why is this? Failing to rescue a drowning child, when you could do so, and no-one better qualified or responsible was around, would result in execration.

Of course, a thoroughgoing consequentialist has to act in each situation so as to lead to the best likely outcome, so cannot stand by, even when “not involved”.

Parfit has an interesting comment: Reject both. I believe that, though nothing could be truer than the truths of arithmetic, these truths have no ontological implications. I am a Non-Metaphysical Cognitivist about arithmetic, about normative truths, and several other areas of our thinking. Such truths involve entities and properties that have no ontological status. Numbers, for example, are neither real nor unreal, and neither actual nor merely possible. Even if nothing had ever existed, in the ontological sense, there would have been various truths, and abstract entities, in a non-ontological sense.

Presumably this is an attempt to cut the Gordian knot whereby we either need a ground for abstract objects – the mind of God, say – or say they are just conventions of language, or the implications of those conventions, but then wonder why we’re all agreed in adopting this way of speaking.

The “No free will” position is the opposite extreme, but is also incompatibilist, taking the line that because determinism is true, we have no free will. Maybe, however, there are positions that deny determinism, yet also deny free will.

Footnote 22: Some of the breakdowns don’t add up – in that some %age of the responses seem to have leached out of the survey. This isn’t the case at the higher level. I presume it’s just sloppiness.